NATO is expanding its presence in Central Asia and the Caucasus without any
clear strategy concerning the Alliance's political goals and methods. Inst
ead, individual members have pursued separate, and sometimes competing, int
erests and aims. In the absence of collective political guidance, NATO mili
tary planners have substituted bureaucratic temporisation for making hard d
ecisions defining NATO's interests in the region and the limit of its reach
. As a result, vague commitments and understandings have developed between
NATO and its partner states in Central Asia and the Caucasus, most of which
are little comprehended even among the parties themselves, and less so by
external observers such as Russia, China and Iran.